Environmentalists just love to hear themselves scream into a megaphone over problems. Plastic waste was always known to be a problem. It wasn’t until it showed up in neighborhoods where the loudest environmental voices live that it became an issue to address. From surfer dudes hawking bracelets to commercials with heart breaking ballads featuring injured animals, the call is there. It’s the action that’s lacking in the western world.

Imagine how many waste plastic companies could be started with even half of what some celebrities spend on private jets to fly to climate change conferences.

Solutions to plastic waste exist, and have been used successfully for over a decade in those so called third world countries celebrities claim to spend their wealth on. While well dressed people threw thousand dollar a plate charity dinners to make themselves feel like they were making a difference, the rest of the world was left to find their bootstraps. They took challenges and turned them into economic development dollars.

Communities facing plastic waste issues started thinking creatively and a wellspring of solutions came to light. Communities all over Europe, Africa and Asia are making bricks, tiles, pavers, and even roofing from waste plastic. The only barrier to massive production capability is machinery and a willingness to actually do something instead of complaining..

The plastic waste science is in.

There are more than a few structural tests on file for varying compositions of plastic waste brick. It seems the golden ratio is a 4:1 mix. The resultant brick can be formed in ANY common form with a crush rating nearly twice that of a common clay brick. There is also a MASSIVE energy savings. Multiple grades of plastic can be used in these types of plastic waste projects. Just think about all those civic projects where a concrete tile is laid, a comparable plastic waste brick or tile could be used.

Clay bricks need to be heated to thousands of degrees for bitrification. A plastic waste brick need not get any hotter than a baking cake to mix, form and cure in plain air. Standard air handlers are used for PPE as no toxic gasses are released during low temperature manufacturing processes. The lower power requirements, and decreased toxicity potential need not doom an industrial site’s potential for later use.

We have the machinery, we can recycle it.

The US pioneered plastic injection molding technology. Shredding machines already exist as a natural product of the resource recovery efforts of manufacturers. Presses and extruding equipment of all kinds are sitting idle and even rusting. Let’s not even kid ourselves by entertaining the idea there’s a lack of industrial space around the country.

Many of the plastic waste operations mentioned can be adapted to meet US safety and manufacturing standards AND running inside of a year. Even then, that timeline is based on holding out for matching powder coating in an obscure color.

But the plastic waste cost…

Gimme a break. Nobody is charging for garbage except to haul it away. Sorting? Nope. Sorting is a product of a waste management program that is already performing legally and ethically required functions of the trade. We call that waste diversion. It’s a word environmentalists like to throw around like a social media influencer flexing with a new car. It’s great to set it aside, but like a hoarders mess, when it becomes too big to make cheap trinkets from. It’s value is lost.

Hey brother, can you spare nickel for a waste plastic bag?

Waste diversion is only the “doorway” through which recycling materials must pass. Merely sweeping the mess into a pile doesn’t generate value. Exerting effort to turn it into something people will actually need, want, or even use, is what creates value. You can hold thousands of dinners, and sing a million songs, but it’s worse than useless if you aren’t actually getting off your ass to make something out of the pile of garbage growing under your shiny white shoes.

If you build it from plastic waste, they will buy it..

Recycled content is as strong a seller in the market as blue tooth enabled anything. Well heeled hipsters evolving into real world grown ups can brag that they haven’t sold out because their mansion’s retaining walls are made from waste plastic bricks. Cities can brag that a landfill was emptied and a municipal plaza was built with what used to be called garbage. It’s crass but we all know the consumer market is informed not by the most educated voice, but the most popular kid in class.